It all began a year ago (April 2020) when Nicolas Vivin the entrepreneurial founder of VIVIN Grocery along with his business partner wife, were faced with losing the greater part of their supply business due to hotels and restaurants closures on top of facing the challenge of the Government imposed curfew only months after opening their stand-alone boutique grocery store in Ekkamai Complex. Customers were wary to leave the house or enter “high risk”, populated areas such as major supermarkets.
The enterprising couple came up with a solution that could help customers to discover the grocery products with minimal effort and risk and create a small, alternative revenue stream. They first looked to their immediate resources. One, was an older but fully functioning refrigerated truck used for transporting goods which had little use since the first major Covid-19 outbreak hit Thailand.
The idea came about to supply the bakery, organic vegetables, cheese and charcuterie to the people by way of a transport vehicle. It took two weeks to remodel their delivery truck to become a refrigerated mobile Grocery on wheels. The couple then fitted-out the grocery truck with existing crates to stock fresh organic vegetables, bakery goods; butter croissants, baguettes and sourdough loaves, organic chutneys and jams. They also utilised metal hooks to hang dry sausages and charcuteries and their grocery shelves to stock wheels of cheese and boxes of frozen butchery cuts. Lastly, they placed a transportable mini fridge, typically used as their wine cooler in-store to stock cheese portions, organic dairy; yogurt, milk, cottage cheese.
The VIVIN Grocery Food Truck for the majority parked at harder-to-reach locations in proximity to their Ekkamai location, thanks to their network of kind restaurateurs, organisations and chefs who allowed them to park at their entrances. Those first locations partners were Acacia School (Soi Prasat Suk), Kad Kakao (Soi Naradhiwas), Baan Restaurant (Wireless Road) and The Fox (Soi Thonglor). The neighbourhood people were grateful and pleased to discover the fresh, high quality groceries, so much, that after the 4 weekends of trading from the VIVIN Grocery Truck, there became a demand to make it a regular event, although the couple needed to return and take care of their grocery shop after the intense COVID-19 outbreak period was over. Now, after 1 year and COVID-19 cases have unfortunately increased once again, The VIVIN Grocery team will rev-up their engines, this time to new addresses.
VIVIN Grocery Food Truck will move from one key location to the next over the next few coming weekends and reach communities who can benefit from healthy, organic, natural groceries. The truck will be parked at participating partner’s locations which are open-air, shaded and some may provide a comfortable place to sit and enjoy morning coffee or lunch/brunch or even a customised menu for the unique occasion.
VIVIN Grocery will reveal weekly on their social media pages, where they will pop-up their operations. VIVIN Grocery will be trading every Saturday or Sunday from morning to afternoon. If you missed out the first time, get ready to visit The VIVIN Grocery Food Truck, who will open up their truck back doors offering crates filled with quality essentials and delicacies; free-range eggs, certified organic vegetables, jams and chutneys, bread and pastries (baked that morning) along with plenty of local Thai, artisanal cheese and cold cuts and even butchery. Look out for the announcement on their VIVIN Grocery facebook / @vivingrocery instagram or message them on LINE: @VIVINGrocery pages for updates!
